Pocky & Tomatoes
by Djinn Crimsora
Summary: Why did Itachi truly leave Sasuke alive that night all those years ago? Here's why!


**This is something I just came up with on the spur of the moment. Hope you enjoy my latest fic (not to mention my first one-shot).**

I don't own _Naruto_; if I did, this would be the exact reason to how Sasuke survived the massacre!

"NOOOOOOOOO!"

Itachi stared at his little brother standing in the doorway of the family room of their house, his small frame trembling at having just witnessed his beloved older brother completely severing their mother's head from her body. He stepped over her body with his hand still gripping her head by the hair. His stoic eyes kept gazing with red disdain at his little brother. "Is there something wrong... otouto?" Itachi's voice carried an even colder demeanor than it had been lately.

"W-what are you doing Itachi-nii!? What did you do?!" Sasuke's small voice cried out. He couldn't focus where his eyes were going. One moment, Itachi then to the decapitated forms of both their parents behind him. The splatterings of blood kept pulling his attention despite his best efforts to avoid them. "Why'd you kill otou-san and okaa-san?!"

"Because Sasuke..." Itachi started, leaning down to one knee. He readjusted his hold of Mikoto's disembodied head as he brought the ANBU sword in his other to show Sasuke his reflection in it, "I wanted to test myself. See how strong I _really_ am. And what better way to do that... than by killing our entire clan? Hm?"

Without warning, Itachi dropped their mother's head and went for Sasuke. He barely resisted the urge to let his surprise show when Sasuke barely dodged the grab.

Sasuke wrenched his eyes closed as he plowed under both of his older brother's arms and into his unguarded abdomen. Itachi took a few steps back before slamming the butt of his sword's handle repeatedly into his younger brother's skull to get him off.

With another forceful slam, Sasuke was thrown against the wall which caused him to yell in pain and huddle his legs in front of his arms, yelling: "YOU MONSTER! WHY!"

"It's like I just said Sasuke. I wanted to see how powerful I became, after having achieved the _true_ power of our clan's bloodline..." he replied. He closed his eyes a moment and reopened them to reveal a pair of Sharingan eyes Sasuke couldn't recognize. "The Mangekyou Sharingan is the true extent of our kekkei genkai. But there's no real need to tell you more than that, since I'm just going to kill you like all the others..."

Itachi moved in on his little brother's prone form with his sword at the ready. He took a breath before bringing it down like an executioner...

...Only to stop a mere inch above something being held by his little brother's small hand. His eyes widened in disbelief.

There, on the floor before him, was Sasuke, one hand in the path of the ANBU captain's sword, holding a box of limited-time 'lemon square' flavor pocky (which seemed to be dripping gasoline) while his other hand held a zippo lighter.

"How did you-"

"Let me live at least, and I won't do it, _nii-san_..." Sasuke said coldly, his eyes filled with a burning desire. While he appeared to be holding himself together, he was ultimately risking his life on something as pointless as a box of pocky he snuck from his older brother's supposedly secret stash.

Itachi was outwardly stoic as always. But on the inside, he was mortified. He thought that their cousin Shisui had stolen his last box, the one that was now in his brother's hands; that had been the real reason why he'd drowned him. Finding out the power he had developed afterwards was just an unintended result that he wasn't about to resent.

"Fine. You shall live to see another day, _otouto_..."

Sasuke released the breath he'd been holding as he dropped the lighter. He gave a slight bit of resistance before finally relinquished the box.

"...But your _cherry tomatoes_ are another matter."

Before Sasuke could blink, he screamed in utter pain. He keeled over with his hands clutching his groin.

"Live on Sasuke. Grow to hate me, loathe me for what I've done this day. And keep in mind; to gain the power you need to kill me, you must kill anyone that gets close to you..."

Without another word, Itachi disappeared in a flock of crows.

Next Day

"Sasuke, I'm afraid... we've got bad news..."

The freshly-ordained emo-prince only grunted in acknowledging the presence of the Hokage and the medical staff.

"After a thorough examination, the tests have revealed... you won't be able to revive your clan... The damage was too intensive for us to do, and the only person who could possibly do anything to fix it as it is now is too far away from the village to get here before any hope remains," the doctor said as he set his clipboard on the table.

Sasuke only grunted in response to it. He could care less about his clan now. He only had a single thought in his mind, and it would forever change the young boy's life.

_Itachi... I _will_ kill you for what you did..._

Sasuke let out a loud groan of pain once all the people grasped he wanted to be left alone finally. Despite the pain killers they prescribed, he was still feeling immense pain from the wound his older brother had dealt him before finally disappearing.

_Fuck... my cherry tomatoes..._

**Hope you guys enjoyed this little peek into the abyss that is my mind!**

**As Friedrich Nietzsche once said: "It is specifically a human trait to find joy in chaos."**

**For those of you who are seeing this due to putting me on your author alerts, don't fret, I'm finally getting somewhere with the next chapters of both _Noodles & Ninja Wire_ as well as _Fluter & the Misfit_. Figured I might as well get to it considering absolutely no one even bothered attempting my challenge.**

**And for those of you who had chalked that question up to me trying to get someone else to do my homework: nice try, but that was a question I had already turned in for credit at least a week before I put that challenge out there. **

**Laters!  
**


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